The International Business Times reports: As the plane touched down in Israel from Paris in the summer of 2014 packed with dozens of French Jews full of hope for their new lives in Israel, a devastating conflict in the Gaza Strip raged.

Israeli authorities directed new arrivals on what to do if their plane was attacked by rocket fire from militants in Gaza, and Avi Mayer of the Jewish Agency, a group that works with people who want to move to Israel, asked passengers about their plans for the future and if they were afraid.

“Afraid?” said one Parisian. “No. I left my fear behind in France.”

Thousands of French Jews have left their country to move to Israel, the U.S. or the U.K. in the past few years, as anti-Semitic far-right wing politics have grown stronger and the threat of Islamic extremism has become a daily source of fear in many neighborhoods.